


what do i do (with all this love for you)

by independentalto



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post S7, minus the idea that apparently none of them get to see each other again because no, there's a second fitzsimmons child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/independentalto/pseuds/independentalto
Summary: After a restless night of trying to take care of newly-born Alwyn FitzSimmons, May finds herself exhausted and just trying to get through her day. Simmons isn't too keen on letting that happen.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Melinda May & Jemma Simmons
Comments: 26
Kudos: 52





	what do i do (with all this love for you)

**Author's Note:**

> written for @untying on tumblr, who prompted me with "I haven't slept properly lately", "I hope you realize how much you mean to me" and "sometimes I wonder how you're still alive" :) Thanks so much for prompting me!
> 
> and a huge, huge, _huge_ thank you to Sanctuaria, who basically was the fire extinguisher to my trash fire draft. there's no telling where this would've been without her. probably very scattered and unfinished, to be honest. go read her fics, they're so good!!

“Sometimes I wonder how you’re still alive.”

Jemma gave May a pitying look as the older agent staggered into the kitchen during the delicate hours of the morning, extra lines of exhaustion etched onto her face from the night she’d just spent being roused in and out of sleep. “I did tell you you didn’t have to do it,” she offered, sliding the mug of tea she’d prepared moments ago across the counter. “If you haven’t prepared for it, it’s a lot to take on.” 

“I thought being an agent would make me better prepared than most,” May groaned, taking a cautious sip of tea before shaking her head. “Feel like I should call Mack, see if I can’t get him to make baby-wrangling a required training unit at the Academy.” It would give them great experience in sleep deprivation, she figured. Not that they probably already weren’t well-versed in it after most of their classes, but there was a major difference between getting two hours of sleep and being woken up every hour and a half. 

That, and the reason being that she was waking up every hour and a half was because of a _baby_. 

When May’d initially agreed to babysit Alwyn FitzSimmons, she’d expected to wake up once or twice during the night, maybe three if the newborn was fussy. _“I haven’t slept properly lately, Fitz hasn’t slept properly lately,”_ Jemma’d explained with an apologetic expression when she’d brought it up. _“And Mack’s handling the final negotiations in Moscow, and Elena’s training, Coulson’s heavens knows where, and Sousa and Daisy are in space…”_ A wince. _“Please, Agent May? It’s just for a night.”_

So she’d taken a few classes off (her students would get an absolute _kick_ out of the fact that Deathlok was subbing), packed her bags full of toys to spoil Alwyn rotten and caught the next flight to Edinburgh. It was for the greater good of SHIELD, she told herself. Taking one for the theoretical team and giving herself a night of sleeplessness so that two of the agency’s greatest minds could get a decent one. 

It hadn’t even been that terrible at first – FitzSimmons had put Alwyn down at around six, had a sound little dinner with Alya before putting her down at eight. By 8:30, May was digging through their liquor cabinet for some of Fitz’s prized scotch while FitzSimmons brushed their teeth with far too much giddiness for a couple that’d practically mandated themselves to go to bed early. 

_“There’s formula in the fridge, extra diapers in the dresser, don’t forget to warm the bottle before you give it to Alwyn, but not too hot, he doesn’t like that,” Fitz rattled off, voice petering out when he caught wind of May’s flat look. “Aaaand of course you know all that, May, I didn’t have to tell you any of that…” She simply raised an eyebrow. “If it’s really an emergency, of course feel free to wake us up. Oh, and if Alya comes out of her room talking about monsters, we started watchin’ She-Ra and she’s a princess that defeats the Horde. Just in case.”_

By 10, FitzSimmons were snoring away in the master bedroom louder than she’d ever heard them on the Bus _or_ the Zephyr, and, not quite yet accustomed to the academic sleeping schedule, May’d whipped out a stack of papers she’d been meaning to grade and got to work. 

The first few times Alwyn’d cried had been welcome distractions, really – May had been halfway through grading a mess of a paper that seemed like it’d been both plagiarized and written under the influence – so really, having to get up and take care of the four-month-old had saved someone from having their paper tossed into FitzSimmons’ fireplace. At worst, they were minor inconveniences, and the worst she’d had to do was mark her place and get up to try and put little Alwyn back to sleep. 

But then the wee hours of the morning had approached, and when May had accidentally scribbled across an entire paragraph of work for the fifth time (damn letters all bunching together, apparently her sight wasn’t what it used to be), she’d finally accepted that perhaps it was time to throw in the towel. So, sighing, she’d set the papers aside, propped the baby monitor onto the nightstand and tucked herself in, snorting at the fact that she was doing so despite knowing she would just rumple the sheets again in who knew how long. 

It didn’t turn out to be long until Alwyn’s cries were sounding through the monitor, and for the first time that night, May found herself plodding over to the nursery, scooping up a well-swaddled bundle into her arms and gently rocking back and forth until the cries turned to whimpers and she was eventually able to set him back into his crib. Then it was back to the bed, back under the covers and back to attempting to catch some shut-eye before she would inevitably rise again. 

(When she wasn’t trying her best to get the little bundle back to sleep, May would stare, bleary-eyed and half-awake, at this tiny marvel that had graced the FitzSimmons family – all of them, really – and vaguely understand that this was _right._ It was as if everything they’d worked and fought towards had led up to this moment, this quiet pocket of space in the middle of the night where she was sleep-deprived and holding her all-but-blood grandson in her arms. She was meant to be _here_ , academics and life-threatening experiences aside, lived through the rise and fall of regimes just to be able to do this at least once. 

Of course, that had been the first time May’d had to get up and rock Alwyn. By the fifth time, her thoughts had shifted from eloquent wonder to a frazzled staccato of shocks punctured outwardly by her yawns.) 

Six trips, a bottle, and one messy diaper later, she watched the first rays of the sun peek through the nursery window (how had she not closed it once during her many trips?), shoulders sagging in recognition of the time. _“You’re an exhausting one, xiǎo fēngbào,”_ she murmured when Alwyn finally burbled off. _“Something tells me you’re going to take after your father.”_ A soft knock at the door had signaled Fitz’s arrival, and, grateful for the reprieve, May had handed over the small bundle and staggered directly to the kitchen for caffeine. 

There was no point in trying to get sleep now – the whole thing would only throw off her sleep schedule and she’d be behind for the rest of time. Was this why parents were so addicted to drinking coffee?

“You know, taking a power nap won’t hurt,” Jemma’s tentative voice cut into her thoughts. “Fitz and I used to do it all the time when we first had Alya.” The look in her eyes suggested that she both knew and understood May’s current mental process; or, perhaps, it was the fact that there was a steady stream of hot tea dripping onto the professor’s shirt without so much as a wince. “Get some rest, May.”

“And thank you for watching Alwyn. Really,” Fitz added as he passed through the kitchen, his and Jemma’s expressions identically soft. “Reckon Jem ‘n I haven’t slept properly since he was born. But now it’s your turn to get some rest, yeah?” 

May could only stare at them, these two battle-tested souls she’d practically watched grow up from the moment their baby-like faces had stepped onto the Bus some ten years ago (ten? Thirteen? Given the time they’d spent away, she still wasn’t sure, not even after they’d offered her their best explanations) now bearing the weights and exhaustion of being parents twice over. She wondered when she’d traded the responsibilities of maternity with Jemma, stopped being the structure for them to grow and become the one they quasi-monitored. When she’d become the _elder_ parent. 

Perhaps it’d been somewhere between the fleeting moments she’d last seen Jemma at Izel’s temple and when she’d woken up in that hellscape of a healing pod, when Jemma had become the one with all of the answers and May with neither answers nor feelings.

Watching Jemma grow up had been different from watching the rest – May had watched Daisy be shaped by the tragedies she didn’t choose, Fitz by the constant barrage of misfortune that would wrench him from Jemma’s side. But Jemma…she’d seen Jemma fight tooth and nail to save those she loved, plucking answers out of thin air to quandaries not even the most qualified minds could have even dreamed about. She’d been hardened by the setbacks and the devastation, greeting every morning with a grim expression and a steaming cup of tea. 

Fitz and Daisy had fought to right the tragedies against them, but Jemma had fought to prevent them from happening in the first place. And that, May mused, was what had separated her from the other two. It made her scrappier, fiercer. More determined to fight for what she believed in. 

“Nana?” 

Melinda looked down to see the platinum tendrils of Alya FitzSimmons, a hesitant hand halfway to tugging at her shirt. Speaking of being considered old… “Good morning, Alya,” she murmured, bending down. The young girl had come a long way since the team had met her, sprouting a few inches and hair beginning to develop into what she could only describe as signature Fitz curls. “Did you defeat any Horde monsters last night?” 

“Yeah!” And just like that, Alya was off, spinning a dizzying narrative of princesses and swords while Fitz busied her a breakfast plate. Not even food was enough to deter her, for as soon as a full English breakfast landed in front of her, the narration continued between bites of beans on toast. If May thought hard enough, she could distinctly remember a younger FitzSimmons at the team dinner table, excitedly telling their exploits of the day to the team, somehow managing to finish each others’ sentences even when simultaneously shoveling down their meal. 

Like...parents, like daughter? She supposed she would have to find out. 

“You look tired,” Alya commented with full cheeks, and tilted her head in concern. “Mummy says that people who look tired should get more sleep.” It was only then that May realized she’d been halfway to dipping the tip of her nose into her tea. “Did you sleep, Nana?” Just then, a loud cry split the air, all of them so accustomed or desensitized to the sound that a few seconds passed before its meaning set in. 

“I’ll get him,” Fitz murmured, kissing Jemma’s cheek before striding towards the nursery. “Be ready for school when I’m done, little monkey!” 

Alya yelped, and, abandoning her leftovers, clambered off of her chair and scampered to her own room. “’m not ready yet, Da!” It left Simmons with a small smile, scooping up the plates to deposit them into the sink so that she too could start her day. 

“She’s right, you know,” she joked cheekily, and in a fit of childishness, May stuck her tongue out at her. “If anything, you should probably listen to your all-knowing granddaughter.” _Huh._ Granddaughter. She supposed that made her a grandmother now, didn’t it? A part of the upper echelons of a family. (Although, May mused, if there was anyone more dramatically upset by their title, it was probably her mother. Lian May, great-grandmother? The idea was laughable on both sides.) 

Still, May waved off Simmons’ words, jerking her head out of her tea once more. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured her, taking a sip of the tea that’d previously coated her nose. _God,_ was she exhausted. But mothers – _grandmothers_ didn’t get exhausted. At least, not this early in their lives. She was pretty sure that at this stage, they were supposed to be puttering around and matchmaking their children. “Have you got any coffee?” 

Simmons stopped, the sound of the faucet running filling the sudden silence in the kitchen. Fitz, who’d come into the room with Alya, had just caught her last words upon entry and was also staring at May as if she’d been replaced once more by an LMD. 

Only the young FitzSimmons was blissfully unaware, darting over to snag her backpack from the hooks on the wall. “Why’s everyone look scared?” she asked, looking between her gobsmacked parents and the practically-asleep May. “Did somethin’ happen?” 

“You just heard, right –” 

“She asked for –” 

“Coffee,” FitzSimmons echoed in horror, and had May not been so tired, she would’ve rolled her eyes at the both of them. 

“I hate the stuff, but it works,” she groused, finally giving in to gravity and plonking her head onto the table. “I don’t need much. Whatever you’ve got, I’ll take. And don’t tell Coulson. I’ll never hear the end of it.” Coffee was her apocalypse drink – and given that it was before nine in the morning and she was already this tired, May presumed this was an apocalypse-level occasion. (Somehow, in the seven years she’d been with them, nothing had ever come close to that level of disaster.)

Simmons poured her a half cup of coffee, still eyeing her suspiciously. She’d turned the faucet off after Fitz and Alya’d walked in, and the rush of the water was replaced by the steady drip of the coffeemaker. “Tell me something only the real May would know.” 

“Wha – you’re really going to –” May made grabby hands for the coffee cup before sighing. If Simmons was truly going to be that way… “Fine. When I was in the healing pod after…” She cast a look at Alya, mentally willing Fitz to cover her ears. Luckily, Fitz seemed to get the gist, for he bent down to Alya, murmuring into her ear; not a second later, she was bounding off towards the car with her backpack. “When I was in the healing pod after getting murdered by Sarge, I heard things. Call it part of the transition process to becoming an empath, super weird hearing, whatever. But I heard things.” 

“I heard all of you talking,” she continued, and both Fitz and Simmons exchanged looks. “Daisy cried, a lot. Mack and Elena were in there ruminating on their future. Enoch told me about the technicalities of my recovery. Deke told some jokes I wish I could unhear –”

“Of course he did,” Fitz muttered darkly, but it was with a fond roll of the eyes that he accepted Simmons’ elbow jab. 

“But you were there the most, Simmons.” It wasn’t an untrue fact; as the team medical expert, Simmons had been practically required to be by May’s side at all times. “And you talked the most.” Her memory of it all was hazy, Simmons’ accent weaving in and out of her dreams, but there’d been a few lines that’d stuck out to her. “Mostly about Fitz being gone. And how you missed him, but it was imperative no one know where he was.” 

_“It’s been seven days since Fitz has gone.” Simmons’ voice floated into the room long before May could sense her presence; even when half-conscious people were still easy to discern. “And it’s been seven days since we brought you back from the precipice of death.”_

_A sharp breath. “It shouldn’t have been possible for you to hang on,” The tinkling in the lab suggested Simmons was casually tinkering with the instruments, but the catch in her voice revealed just the opposite. “I checked. Enoch checked. You should be dead.”_

But I’m not, _May wanted to tell her._ I’m not, and I’m pretty sure you know why. _She’d seen the abject horror cross across Daisy’s face when she’d told her she would be seeing Coulson soon, the absolute panic rising in her eyes when she’d realized May was essentially dying in her arms. (Maybe perhaps even then she’d felt the poor girl’s terror seeping into her veins, shouldering her away from the light and back towards those who needed her.)_

_“But somehow, you’re hanging on.” Another soft sigh before Simmons was still, presumably gazing over the glass of the pod while the plastic creaked with her weight. “Somehow, you’re still here for us. Here for whatever’s left of our little ragtag team.”_

_It was funny how she’d never intended to become a major figure in their lives. She’d never even planned to be more than just the pilot, never meant to be more than the eye over Coulson. And yet, here she was, wavering between life and death just so that they would have something to hold onto._

_“You have to hold on, May.” Simmons was more morose now, perhaps gazing off solemnly into some distant part of the ship. “You have to hold on. I don’t know what I’d do if you – if we didn’t have you.” A beat. “I mean, LMD Coulson’s here, but you know damn well it’s not the same; he’s not the man we knew. You’re the only one we have left. The only one_ I _have left.”_

_Did Simmons not know she knew that? Did she not know that’d been why she’d hung on with every stubborn inch of her personality, fought off the demons of the afterlife and rooted her feet firmly within the land of the living? Had she really thought she would go gallivanting off into the sunset at the first given opportunity?_

_Please. She needed to stay alive for two reasons and two reasons only: to prevent the team from breaking completely and to at least_ try _to deck this LMD version of Coulson._

_“I hope you realize how much you mean to me.” Simmons lapsed into quiet, voice on the verge of cracking. “You’ve always had our backs, even when we went blindly into something that could’ve killed us. You were the one that always picked us up and pushed into the next day because there was no use in dwelling in the fears of the present. Even when –” She let out a little chuckle. “Even when all we did were pass like ships in the night, you still managed to know when I needed you most. And I could never repay you for that.”_

“You heard me say that.” Simmons was pensive, but at least she’d slid the coffee cup across the counter. May took it gratefully, the harsh jolt of caffeine sliding through her veins. She could already feel herself waking up infinitesimally; extremely tired was a stage of being she could work with. “I didn’t realize you’d heard.” 

“There wasn’t really a time to tell you.” Between jumping through time hoops and time loops, she’d barely found a moment alone with the young (not-so-young, now, she had to remember) scientist, and when she had, it’d barely been fleeting before they’d been made to sprint headfirst into the next crisis. And the longer she’d waited, the more awkward expressing the sentiment had become. Eventually, May’d discarded it entirely, forgoing it for copious offers to babysit and visiting the pair so often it was almost as if she lived with them. She’d hoped they would understand – would understand the weight in her words, the earnestness in her emotions.

After all, actions had always spoken louder than words. 

“I’d imagine.” Simmons’ reply lapsed them into a silence that verged on the edge of being slightly uncomfortable, May finishing the coffee and Simmons reaching to take the cup. She tilted her head at the older agent, inquisitive eyes that had once only been for science now being used to study one of her oldest mentors. “But I’d always hoped you knew how much you’d meant to me.” 

“And we hope you know what it means to matter to us.” Fitz added, wrapping an arm around his wife's waist. “It goes both ways, May.” A wry smile crossed his face as another cry pierced the air, the reminder of May’s tiredness arriving in the wave of fatigue she’d thought she’d beat. “And mattering to someone means letting them take care of you,” he told her pointedly when she disappeared to tend to Alwyn. “It means to _get some rest here._ ” 

May sighed, chuckling dryly. She knew a lost argument when she saw one. (Simmons would probably have her head if she tried to drive home in this condition, anyways. Even if she _did_ call someone to come pick her up.) Besides, rush as it may be, the coffee tasted terrible. “I’ll take the guest room,” she finally relented; as she said it, a yawn threatened to crack her jaw in half. Maybe coffee didn’t work as well for her as she thought it did.

Simmons poked her head out of the nursery with a stern expression. “ _Sleep_ ,” she threatened, maternal worry etched into the vowels of each word. “Don’t make me call Daisy. You know how Daisy gets when she hears you’re not taking care of yourself.” 

“I’m going, I’m going,” If she thought Simmons was stern, Daisy was even worse about May’s well-being – if _she_ heard May was refusing to sleep, there was no telling what sort of nonsense would rain down from space. (She’d heard that upon getting wind of Mack pulling all-nighters to negotiate Bobbi and Hunter’s return early on, Daisy had practically broken the sound barrier returning from space to berate him. There was no way she was going to be responsible for that a second time.)

She’d only meant to settle onto the couch, she really had – it didn’t make sense for her to go back to the guest bedroom when she was only planning for a slight power nap – but suddenly, May found herself swaddled in a veritable pile of blankets _in_ said guest room, Simmons tucking in their final edges with a concerned look on her face.

“See, isn’t that better?” she asked; for a minute, their roles were reversed, Simmons the ever-caring mother and May the child that refused to slumber. (It didn’t help that the blankets practically dwarfed the older agent, making it so that only her head popped out from under them.) “Much better than staggering through the day, wouldn’t you agree?” 

“Only because your coffee is terrible,” May muttered back, but her barb lacked strength and they knew it. “Are you sure you and Fitz don’t need me to keep watching Alwyn?” All she needed was five minutes. Maybe ten, if she was particularly bewitched by the blankets, but even sunk into a mattress, all she would need was a power nap and she’d be good to go. “You should get more sleep, Simmons, you’re doing this every night --”

“ _Yes_ ,” Simmons told her firmly, and May was sure even the hardiest of men (read: Mack) would shrink back from the steel in her expression. (Mack probably already had.) “Fitz and I got more than enough sleep last night, you were an absolute godsend. But it’s your turn to rest now.” 

May yawned again, nodding and unconsciously turning so she could pull the blankets in tighter. The exhaustion was truly getting to her now, pulling at her eyelids and closing up shop in every part of her brain. No wonder Fitz and Simmons had been so excited to get to sleep. Either that, or she was getting soft as an academic – this couldn’t have been the least amount of sleep she’d ever operated on. It couldn’t have been. There’d been Bogota, Luzerne, Nice...

...maybe she’d call Maria when she came to. 

* * *

Simmons smiled when she finally saw May’s breathing even out, making sure to sneak a quick picture before patting the blankets one last time and walking out of the room. 

When Elena had told her a few days ago that Flint had reported Professor May looking more exhausted and haggard than ever (and drinking _coffee_ , Elena’d told her in a horrifed voice), she’d immediately volunteered to help reset her sleep schedule – after all, if there was anyone who knew the most about resets, it was FitzSimmons themselves. Mike had been all-too-easy to convince to step in, and before one could say “I’ll take a gun if I need one”, May was setting up shop in their living room, prepared to pull the worst version of an all-nighter in her life. 

(Thank goodness Fitz had thought to buy extra dark roast beans – even after their little ruse, when May had gone through the first cup without ceremony, she’d thought they would’ve had to resort to other measures.)

Sighing to herself, she sent off a quick email before heading back to the kitchen to finish the dishes. 

**to: “Johnson, Daisy” (** **djohnson@SHIELD.gov** **); “Rodriguez, Elena” (** **erodriguez@SHIELD.gov** **)**

 **cc: “Mackenzie, Flint” (** **fmackenzie@SHIELD.gov** **)**

**subject: Mission accomplished**

**attch:** [ **sleepymay.jpg** ](https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/elasticbeanstalk-us-west-1-325316178452/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/17081635/WenEver-wide-06_zps2ued5lla.jpg)

Which one of you wants to bring this up at Thanksgiving? 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! :)


End file.
